"Schiller in Marbach" is the straightforward title of the permanent exhibition in the house of Schiller's birth. It traces the poet's first four years, which he spent at his birthplace. The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to the history of the veneration of Schiller and shows that the history of the city of Marbach has been closely bound to Schiller's remembrance since the mid-nineteenth century. That is why the house itself is highlighted as the most important exhibit commemorating this great author.

On November 10, 1759, Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was born on the ground floor of this modest tradesman's house built in the early eighteenth century at Niklastorstraße 31 in Marbach. His mother Elisabetha Dorothea had only recently moved into the small apartment with her first child, two-year-old Christophine. The father, Lieutenant Johann Caspar Schiller, usually stayed wherever his regiment was stationed. During these years, his wife mostly lived alone with the two children in their modest apartment.

The impressive christening cap and the stately list of godparents in the Marbach Parish Register attest to the fact that the Schillers were still a highly respected family in the town, despite their precarious financial circumstances. Both "relics" belong to the total of roughly thirty original items from poet's life and impact which can be seen in the new exhibition.

When Schiller died on May 9, 1805 in Weimar, the house of his birth had temporarily been forgotten. However, only a few years later, as the posthumous fame of the poet grew, it became a popular place of pilgrimage for admirers. The Marbach Schiller Society acquired the house and opened it to the general public as a memorial and small museum in the Schiller anniversary year of 1859.